


Being Magical

by Entwinedlove



Series: Marvelously Magical Bingo 2018 [20]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, a tiny attempt at humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 18:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16100990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/pseuds/Entwinedlove
Summary: In early 1996, someone hires the Winter Soldier to kidnap or assassinate Harry Potter. Minerva isn't going to let that happen, of course, but she wasn't quite prepared for this either.





	Being Magical

**Author's Note:**

> For Marvelous Magical Bingo 2018; for square **I3** – _Minerva McGonagall_
> 
>  
> 
> [ ](https://i.imgur.com/vi2c1ra.jpg)  
> 

Bucky Barnes was a Muggle-born. It was like finding like when he befriended magical Steve Rogers on the playground when they were eight. And although the Barnes's were better off than the Rogers's, neither family had the money to ship the boys off to a Wizarding school when they turned eleven.

Sarah did her best. She told them tales of Hogwarts, the great castle in Scotland where she'd gone to school. Bucky and Steve would sit quiet and still for hours listening to her talk about her adventures in some far away land, which was quite a feat for two rambunctious little boys.

When she was able, after working long hours as a nurse, she taught the boys out of her old textbooks. Steve used his dad's wand, left at home during the Great War when he'd gone off to fight. Sarah let Bucky use hers for practical lessons. He used it so often that it changed allegiance. On his seventeenth birthday, she officially gifted it to him. He'd tried to give it back and when she insisted that he was the stronger wizard and the wand was truly his, he promised he'd buy her a new one to replace the one he'd inadvertently stolen.

Unfortunately, TB got her before he'd made good on his promise.

Being magical didn't make things easier. Sure you could duplicate food if you had it but sometimes they struggled to have even that. But then the war in Europe happened and suddenly there were jobs and _enough_ and for a bit, life was good in their little tenement in Brooklyn.

Being magical didn't stop Bucky from getting drafted.

He had been paranoid, unsure on how to hide his wand through basic so he left it at home. It wasn't until his last night in the city when he was boarding the ship to take him across the Atlantic that he stowed it in his pack.

Being magical didn't help the cause. In fact, there were so very few opportunities to use his wand and his magic he often thought it would have been better to leave his wand at home. It would have been safer there.

Being magical didn't stop him from being selected for the isolation ward and Zola's laboratory. There was something about the way Zola hand-picked the 'volunteers' that suggested he was picked precisely because he _was_ magical.

He'd tucked his wand in his boot, hoping to keep it safe, hoping that if he had the chance he'd use it to free himself and the rest of them.

He hadn't been given the chance.

Then Captain America had saved him, then the tactical team, then the train. He'd been aware enough at the bottom of that ravine to search for his wand but he hadn't found it.

But, of course... The Asset has no recollection of these things.

* . * . *

It's late. Minerva, in cat form, wanders the castle looking for out-of-bed students. She stopped in the kitchens for an indulgent bowl of cream and was now heading towards the Marble Staircase to return to her room when she hears a noise. The slightest rustle of trousers and the scuff of leather-soled boots on the stone floor catches her sensitive ears. Turning the corner she sees a masked man, creeping along the wall. He looks dead-set on a mission of some sort with his wand aloft.

This is not good.

She does not know this man, doesn't recognise the build of his shoulders nor the colour of his hair. He was never a student. But he's walking carefully up the steps like he knows where the trick steps are and he veers left instead of right on the third floor to take an open secret passage that Gryffindor students use daily. It's not until he gets to the Portrait of the Fat Lady that he stops.

The Fat Lady's gaze darts to Minerva, recognising her, but she still yawns and tips her nose up at the stranger. "Password?" she asks.

"Open," the man says. His voice is soft under his mask and scratchy though Minerva doesn't know whether it's from smoking or disuse.

"That is not a password, young man."

He pauses like he's confused and Minerva takes the moment to walk a little closer. It's dark enough in the torch-lit corridor that she can get directly beneath him without him noticing. At this angle, the mask looks more like a muzzle.

His eyebrows are furrowed but there's a determined look in his eyes. He raises his wand at the portrait, "Open or I'll blow up the painting."

"Do you really think my painting isn't Charmed against attacks like that? I'm protecting students. You cannot enter without a password," the Fat Lady tells him. She's more awake now that she has understood the stakes. This is an intruder.

The Fat Lady knows just as well as Minerva that of all the students safely tucked inside the tower, this muzzled man is probably after fifth-year Harry Potter. Minerva doesn't expect this to be an attempt at kidnapping by the Ministry but she wouldn't put it past them, especially with Dolores Umbridge acting Headmistress to cover it up.

The man shakes his head, tossing his long brown hair around his face. He then pockets his wand and unsheathes a large knife. "I will get into that room. My mission is in there," he says.

Minerva darts towards the wall and shifts, already standing at the ready with wand in hand and a Shield Charm in her mind. He blinks and rocks back, shocked at her sudden appearance. It's only now that she's level with him that she realizes his light eyes look blank.

"Move," he says.

"I don't think so, young man," she tells him, wand lifted. She uses a spell she hopes she'd never have to use. A spell she learned years ago when she worked in the Department of Law Enforcement. It clears the mind of an Imperius Curse.

He blinks. Looks around him, then down at the knife in his hand. He drops the knife and scrabbles at that hand, that arm, with the other. "No, no..." he murmurs, caught up in some mental anguish that Minerva doesn't understand. He rips at his shirt and only when he's yanked the latches and buckles off and strips of hardened leather hang from the seams at his shoulders does she see what he sees, what he's realized.

His entire left arm is made of metal. Shiny and shifting, with interlocking plates and where it meets the skin it's scarred with furrows from fingernails repeatedly scratching at it. It's an old wound.

His breath is coming faster and harsher and when he looks up at her above the mask, the muzzle, all she can see in his eyes is a terrified young man, no... a scared little boy.

Minerva reaches forward and cups his cheeks, searching for whatever is holding the muzzle on. It's moulded tight to his jaw but comes off in her hands easily enough. His breath is still coming too sharp so she drops the metal muzzle to her feet and returns both her hands to his face. "Breathe with me. In," she inhales deeply in example, "and out." Again she puts actions to words. Repeating the process and maintaining eye contact with him. Finally, when his breathing is more normal, she lowers her hands. "Do you know where you are?"

He looks at her and blinks again and then looks around, his gaze darting to the torches along the walls and the paintings and the Marble Staircase behind him. "Hogwarts?" he asks, confused. His voice is louder without the muzzle, clearer in tone.

"Yes, good. You're in Hogwarts. I don't believe you were a student here, however. Do you know how you got here?"

He returns his fearful gaze to her, meets her eyes, says, "Ma'am, I don't even remember my own name."

Minerva bites her tongue in response. This is going to take all night. And maybe a bottle of Ogden's.


End file.
